Comments on: David Brooks: Know Your Betters

By: Authoritarianism or Self-Determination » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog

Authoritarianism or Self-Determination » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 16:13:43 +0000

[...] too caught up in their emotional enmeshment with the State to understand that it is they who think they’re better than everyone [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:57:17 +0000

“Even if you’re the die-hardest of die-hard blue- or red-staters, in your most honest moments you have to concede that Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner are absurd human beings.”

Epic. Though to be truly accurate one would have to note that Nancy Pelosi (et al, but her especially) has no hope of (or, I suspect, interest in) ever approaching anything nearly as benign as absurdity. I believe pathological preposterousness to be essentially the Clark Kent to her Superman.. her condescending preformance-art critique of the average voter. Deep down, she’s all hate and destruction.

To torture the metaphor further, she’s a clown.. who stabs you in the back, between phoning in sub-par balloon animals.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:31:34 +0000

Sounds to me like Mr. Brooks is suffering from sour grapes. He’s one of the people “in charge”, but isn’t getting the respect he thinks he deserves from what he calls the “Great Unwashed Masses”………well, because, we just don’t know our place. Brooks is one of those people who would insist that we all should be living like the Unabomber in a one-room shack while he and his fellow “superiors” get to live in mansions which burn enough energy to power a small town………..because, well, they are just “better” than rest of us. Hey Brooks: I wave my private parts at your aunties, I blow my nose at you! You’re mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

By: Sancho

Sancho — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 03:29:20 +0000

http://crookedtimber.org/2012/06/12/shorter-david-brooks-on-followership/

By: Ian MacLeod

Ian MacLeod — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 06:29:29 +0000

There are a few people I’d call my “betters” – in some things. There is no one I’ve ever met I’d call my better in every way, and not that many I’d call an equal. And there is NO “authority” that I will trust blindly, ESPECIALLY a government authority.

Ian

By: fursnake7

fursnake7 — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 21:40:55 +0000

Off topic, but:
Sorry, Ghost #37 and OtherSean #38, we DO need regulation against things like toxic waste, not just information and enforcement of property rights. Business leaders are personally rewarded by producing short-term profits. Running their businesses cleanly and responsibly will always be more expensive and less profitable than dumping. Corrupt and/or oblivious politicians will always help these businesses by 1.) Helping hide the damage until the offenders have collected their booty and escaped, and 2.) Socializing the cost of cleaning up among the rest of us, thereby ensuring that future businessmen will see the profit in polluting. I’m not “anti-business”; I just wish that businesses would truly have to pay for the damage that they do, as a cost of doing business, before calculating their profits or paying their taxes.

By: Held Prisoner To Tradition? | The Penn Ave Post

Held Prisoner To Tradition? | The Penn Ave Post — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:45:48 +0000

[...] Prisoner To Tradition? Posted at 3:45 on June 17, 2012 by Andrew Sullivan Radley Balko questions the theory that we should defer to the status quo "because our institutions were built and [...]

By: Dedicated_Dad

Dedicated_Dad — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:01:02 +0000

@Aresen (#58) Ron Paul.

By: Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:29:46 +0000

Excellent! Brooks is insufferable.

By: Articles for Friday » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog

Articles for Friday » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:14:26 +0000

[...] Radley Balko: David Brooks: Know Your Betters [...]

By: Patches Ohoulihan

Patches Ohoulihan — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:30:42 +0000

Oops – wrong blog.

By: Patches Ohoulihan

Patches Ohoulihan — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:23:54 +0000

Plus, Lance Armstrong has the BEST. CAMEO. EVER. in Dodgeball

Remember the five D’s: dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge.

By: Matt Strictland

Matt Strictland — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:51:16 +0000

I’ll gladly follow if someone is worthy of it. I haven’t seen that in any of the ruling class.

By: Medicine Man

Medicine Man — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:27:05 +0000

Brooks is quite a creature isn’t he. He has this whole “kiss up, spit down”-shtick learned to the point of being a motor reflex. Anyhow, thanks for writing such a detailed and methodical take-down of his drivel. I only wonder if Brooks is self-aware enough to appreciate how badly he’s being reamed.

By: JB Andrews

JB Andrews — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:18:47 +0000

“…people are cynical and like to pretend that they are better than everything else around them. Vanity has more to do with rising distrust than anything else.”

By: Calion

Calion — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:12:18 +0000

This is awesome. But you neglect to mention that our political institutions, unlike those of other nations, were specifically and explicitly designed for a populace that questioned authority, that did not have faith in its leaders, and works badly without that basic skepticism.

By: The Hell?

The Hell? — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:18:00 +0000

@ 75

So Brooks, a longtime hack Republican mouthpiece and favorite object of ire for liberals, is somehow secretly stumping for Obama over his wet dream candidate Romney? And he did this by writing one of the most loathed columns in recent memory, which has been savagely ripped apart by pretty much every blog in the English speaking internet?

Your logic is positively Brooksian…

By: Some guy

Some guy — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:55:45 +0000

I did not know David Brooks had less testosterone than Maureen Dowd.

By: Steve Verdon

Steve Verdon — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:39:44 +0000

People like David Brooks think people rise to positions of power and status because they’re better, wiser, or otherwise more meritorious than the rest of us—they’re “Great Men” touched by the hand of God.

To quote somebody not as moronic as David Brooks,

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”–John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

Brooks is an authoritarian asshole, much like Thomas Friedman who is in love with Communist China.

By: Alex the Lesser

Alex the Lesser — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:29:12 +0000

I think Mr. Brooks is misunderstanding his own point. The leaders of the past made for great monuments because they were great leaders, and we haven’t had one of those in decades. Brooks shoots himself down with the Eisenhower quote – “Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.” I don’t think one can honestly ascribe those characteristics to a statistically significant portion of America’s current ruling caste. All that our modern leaders do better than their underlings is self-promote.